We often wonder why people say the things they do. You might well wonder that about us too. Information presented on a public website about us can be analyzed and interpreted by anyone. References to forums on that site invite investigation by anyone. Compiling public information, then publishing those references, making associations, and suggesting motivations, is how anyone influences opinion. We feel that the website about us presents information in ways intended to influence opinion. We feel the information is incomplete, inaccurate, or misrepresents the circumstances and contextual setting from which it is derived. If the information wasn't public, we wouldn't comment on it, analyze it, test it, or research it, and because it is about us, we choose to study it.

Opinions and motivations drive the personalities that peddle influence. It is far easier to get a group of people to lynch someone than it is to get that group to protest inequitable treatment of others. Why? Negative energy excites our primal drives, the instinctual fight or flight response, consciousness is optional and likely left out of the loop by the brain. Positive energy requires the consciousness to participate, requires motivation, and is manually created. It is work. Conscious thought is required and without motivation nothing happens.

We occasionally check out the public forums that contain content about us. On one of those forums we recently saw a posting of our comments thanking someone for visiting our Deviantart account page. In the forum was a post of how this was evidence of us stalking the person to whom we sent the thank you. We find these kinds of comments interesting and deserving of study.

The images and comments in the forum were posted around mid April 2007. The comments that we authored and sent to a member were reproduced as images in the forum. They were typical of Susan's commenting on Deviantart.

Our participation in the artist sites at that time varied considerably. On Deviantart, we thanked many of the people who we could see in our visitors section that had stopped by without leaving a comment. We would, as part of the thank you, view their portfolio and make a comment. We recognized that the principle of reciprocity builds community and promotes your art: 'I will comment on your art, perhaps you will comment back'.

We initially had no clue who she was. We were curious why someone would visit our page, not leave a comment, and have no portfolio or content on Deviantart. On other art sites we had observed that anonymous or free accounts were often the source of poor ratings or bad comments. This experience was shared by many artists in many forums and is a frequent topic of interest on several art sites. Commenting is vital if we are to interact and form a community. Anonymous comments and visitors are naturally suspect.

We were curious as to why she visited our page? Our visitor list was never very big. Just a few visitors, friends, and other artists we had come to know. Who was this person with no portfolio, nothing, just a free member account who visited our pages. After sometime we determined who created the account.

Enclosed below are a few examples of other visitors to our pages that we thanked during the same time period as is chronicled in the forum. The allegation of stalking based upon the images of our text posted in the forum would suggest that all of the other artists we thanked on all the art sites were stalked. LOL Thanking others is feedback we generate that completes or initiates communication and interaction. The images posted here are screen shots with the URL overlaid for those who want to see the actual web page for contextual information possibly missing in the image. We do enjoy investigating and studying behavior and motivations.

Copyright © 2007 Flicker Light™ Studio